Inferior petrosal sinus opacification by retrograde venography has been used at several centers as an alternate technique for opacification of orbital veins. In addition, the procedure delineates the anatomy of the cavernous and intrasellar venous sinuses and provides an opportunity for obtaining blood samples directly from the cavernous sinuses. We propose that it may offer definitive methods for the diagnosis of pituitary tumors and that sampling the effluent for hormones will provide evidence for the source of hypersecreted hormones when that source is in doubt. To establish whether this is the case, patients with disorders of the pituitary-adrenal axis who are undergoing continuous venous catheterization for other reasons will have sampling of the inferior petrosal sinus for hormone measurement, and, when indicated, opacification of the cavernous sinus.